Hundreds of anti-Israel student and guest activists stormed out of the Harvard University graduation commencement on Thursday to protest on behalf of encampment demonstrators who were unable to graduate due to disciplinary actions against them.
The Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP) coalition claimed that over a thousand activists walked out of the ceremonies to march to the Harvard-Epworth Church, where they held a “people’s commencement” to honor 13 students allegedly placed on multi-semester probation and five students who had been suspended.
“While today might be commencement, this is just the beginning of the movement at Harvard!” warned HOOP.
Harvard said in a Wednesday statement that 13 students were unable to graduate because of the punishments for involvement in the protest encampment established on April 24, in contrast to previous statements by the suspended Harvard Palestinian Solidarity Committee that 15 students had been denied degrees.
Punished students not included in being conferred degrees
The President and Fellows of Harvard College said on Wednesday that it had voted to confer 1,539 degrees, rejecting a Monday Faculty of Arts and Sciences staff vote amending the list of graduation candidates to include the punished students. The administration explained that the faculty vote did not revisit disciplinary rulings, and therefore they were not in good standing.
“Each of these students has been found by the College’s Administrative Board – the body established by the FAS faculty to investigate and adjudicate disciplinary matters – to have violated the University’s policies by their conduct during their participation in the recent encampment in Harvard Yard,” said the Harvard Corporation. “Because the students included as the result of Monday’s amendment are not in good standing, we cannot responsibly vote to award them degrees at this time. In coming to this determination, we note that the express provisions of the Harvard College Student Handbook state that students who are not in good standing are not eligible for degrees.”
The corporation said that it would consider the conferral of degrees after FAS review of disciplinary appeals.
HOOP said that the Harvard corporation was an illegitimate body that had lost the confidence of students, staff, faculty, and alumni.
“Your repression only makes us stronger,” said HOOP. “Collective punishment will not slow us down. There can be no peace during genocide, and we will not rest until Harvard divests.
The Harvard encampment, established after an April 20 call to action by National Students for Justice in Palestine to emulate Columbia University’s campus occupation, sought like the others of its movement for institutions to end financial and academic ties to Israel.
Harvard PSC said that Harvard had broken its promise to retract suspensions as a precondition for the removal of the camp on May 14.
Harvard Interim President Alan Garber said on Tuesday that he would facilitate a meeting with the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility and other Harvard officials about Harvard endowments, ask the schools to initiate reinstatement proceedings, and ask disciplinary boards to evaluate students expeditiously.